


into the flood again

by deadlybride



Series: it started with the kinks [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, POV Outsider, Post-Episode: s11e17 Red Meat, Relationship Reveal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-04
Updated: 2019-05-04
Packaged: 2020-02-25 22:42:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18711172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deadlybride/pseuds/deadlybride
Summary: Taking some time off after Sam got shot, the boys come to Jody's house to stay a day or two.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a coda to the main series, which is otherwise complete with part 3. Just a little what-if moment.
> 
> title from 'Would?' by Alice in Chains.

Dinner's done, dishes are washed, nobody's bleeding, and the Late Show's about to accompany Jody and the last glass of this bottle of wine to a very satisfying end to an evening. Claire's shut up in her room, listening to music just quiet enough that it's not annoying; Alex is hiding away with biology flashcards that Jody insisted she at least pretend to work on before the exam next week. In the living room, it's quiet, and Jody takes a second to appreciate the solitude. She gets little enough of that, between work and home, and she loves the girls with a solid, simple, true kind of love that honestly surprised her when she realized she felt it—but that doesn't mean that when a little time off appears she isn't grateful. Anyway, that Thor guy is going to be on the show tonight, and he's enough to be grateful for all by himself. A glass of wine, terrible late-night jokes, an attractive man, and her couch. She sinks down, shoving her feet into the slippers tucked ready under the coffee table, props her bum leg up on the pre-prepared pillows. A bunch of nights have been a lot worse than this one.

She's already dozing when she hears it. Commercial playing, that local dealer squawking about trucks, but a low bass-heavy grumble cuts straight through and her eyes pop open. She cranes over the back of the couch, twitches the curtain aside, but she's already smiling because she knows that sound. Showing up past ten, on a school night even. Yeah, that's them.

Thumps, and the doors banging shut. They sure aren't subtle. She swings the door open before they can knock, and there they are: Sam and Dean Winchester, standing on her porch and looking somehow surprised to see her. "You know, you could call or something," she says, raising her eyebrows high. "I'd even take a text. How'd you know I'd be home?"

Sam grimaces, apologetic, but Dean only shrugs at her. "We're just that lucky," he says, and she holds out her arms for a hug and gets two, warm and solid, from Dean and then Sam. They smell like the car, like fast food grease and gunpowder burn on their coats. "You guys working?"

Number of cases they've pulled in and around Sioux Falls, she's started expecting monsters around every corner, not that she'll tell Claire that. But— "Nah," Dean says, his eyes crinkling. "Just a little road trip. Thought we'd swing by, maybe crash on your floor, if that's okay."

"Take all the floor you need," Jody says, and they swarm in. These boys. They're men, they could be her younger brothers if she'd ever had such a thing, but they're such— _boys_. They fill up the room, energy bouncing off of them, all height and shoulders, knocking elbows as they fake-argue over who's going to take the couch, and who took the couch last time, and _whose idea was it to stop at that nasty place for lunch, man, you owe me,_ and Jody rescues her wine glass before it gets knocked over and sighs and limps into the kitchen to pull out three beers, because there's no way she's getting to sleep now, anyway.

By the time she's back, Sam seems to have been victorious, and Dean's complaining about something else, some kind of music or band or something Jody's never heard of—she shuts it up with handing over the beer, and: "Road trip? Didn't know you two ever took vacations."

"They tend to get interrupted," Sam says, smiling his thanks for his bottle.

"Yeah, so we take the chance when we get it," Dean says. He tips his beer at Sam. "And we are never, ever, ever going camping. Road trip it is."

A door opens and music pours out—Claire, who says, "I thought I heard you jerks," sullen like she's not happy as hell to see them. Alex comes out, too, having done probably zero of her studying for bio, and the evening's back on while they hear about the latest hunts at Claire's insistence—though light on details, for Alex's sake. Werewolves, most recently, and probably not a good story from how very light the details go. Not only that—

"Hang on, you got _shot_?" Claire says, and she says it like it's the coolest thing she's ever heard. Jody smacks her shoulder and gets a _what?_ , and Sam laughs, but yeah, now that she's looking for it he is holding himself stiff.

"Is everything okay?" Alex asks, like a reasonable person.

"I'm fine," Sam says, all reassuring, and looks from them to Dean. "I'm _fine_."

"Hey, who's worried?" Dean says. He holds up his beer, leaning back into the couch. "Dug that bullet out myself. Nothing to worry about at all."

Sam snorts, and shakes his head. The rest of the story's just as light on details as the first part, and it's probably for the girls' sake but Jody's sure now that something terrible happened. Something terrible always seems to. Sam touches his stomach a few times, lightly, and Dean's eyes drop and hold and go tight with every one.

It's almost eleven when someone's stomach audibly grumbles, loud enough to derail Claire telling them excitedly about the drills Jody's been setting her with the old revolver her dad passed down. Sam rolls his eyes and Dean grimaces. "Sorry," he says, "long drive," but Jody's already waving a hand, standing up.

"This is why god invented leftovers," she says. Sam gathers himself to stand but Dean claps down a hard grip on his shoulder, presses him back down and using him as a handhold all at once. A sigh, but Sam subsides, and he asks Alex about applying for colleges instead.

"We've got—uh, chicken, roasted potatoes, all the green beans Claire refused to eat," Jody says, cracking the fridge.

"Good girl," Dean says, and then his hand's under Jody's elbow and he's guiding her to the chair that's mysteriously been carried over from the dining table. "Leg's still giving you trouble?"

He's a good boy. Jody sits, stretches out. "About as much trouble as everything else," she says, and Dean huffs, pulling tupperware out of the fridge. "Trouble I can handle. What about you?"

Lid cracked on the container of chicken, Dean makes a happy little noise before he looks up, pays attention. "What, me? I'm always good."

Jody snorts. "Yeah, sure you are." Dean smiles at her, but it's not smart-assed, just—honest. Mostly honest, anyway. These two always hold a little back, but she's used to that, now. He starts going through her cupboards, finding a pan to reheat the breasts and a microwave dish, bustling around like he owns the place. No bruises on him, that Jody can see—tiniest of scrapes on his cheekbone that's well on its way to healed. Must've been a while since their last hunt, especially if Sam's still recovering.

Speaking of: "Sam?" she says.

He's putting the potatoes in the microwave. A pause, before he closes the door, long enough that it's real obvious. "He's, you know. He's doing good." The microwave turns on with a beep, humming. The girls are arguing about something to do with the high school, and Sam's leaning back into the couch, eyebrows high as he tries to follow it. In the kitchen, Dean leans on the island, chews the inside of his cheek for a second while he looks past Jody at something he can't see.

Not a good story. No story with a bullet wound ever is, but this one—yeah. Jody's seen that look, a few times. Seen it in the mirror. She doesn't ask, at least right now. Maybe over coffee in the morning, if she can get one of them alone.

"Well, good," Jody says, now, standing up. She grimaces, stretching out her leg. Damn thing. "Enjoy your dinner. I'm going to bed."

Dean blinks, returning to the room they're in, and then gives her a scoff. "C'mon, you going soft? It's not even midnight, I know you've got a little party left in you."

She shakes her head. "I have exactly no party left in me," she says. "Some of us have to go to an actual job in the morning." She raises her voice, and says, "And some people have school!" and gets a swivel of the girls' head in unison.

"Yeah, _some_ people," Claire says, grinning, and Alex rolls her eyes, and then there's fresh bickering, although it's quieter.

"Sorry we just dropped in on you," Dean says, and Jody's shaking her head before he's even halfway through. "I know, it's just—we were gonna crash in the car, but with Sam's guts hanging out—"

"Trust me, it's fine," Jody says. She squeezes his arm. "But you do your own damn dishes."

Dean nods, and gives her a little tip of a salute. "Yes, ma'am."

*

She wakes up, because she does every night. No dreams this time, or at least none she remembers. She's not a heavy sleeper, but she keeps the door cracked at night either way—habit from when her son was alive, and useful now with the girls, even if they think they're adults and that they know everything. Warm, too warm, and she shoves the quilt down, drags her hand over her face.

Clock says 1:13, and light's peeking down the hallway, gleaming yellow through the crack in her door. Low voices, male in this houseful of women: Sam and Dean, she remembers, late. Her brain's all fuzz. Not enough sleep. She shifts and the knee twinges, low-down and sharp, warning. She's allowed to walk on it, after weeks in that stupid brace, but it yelps at her sometimes like a kicked dog. Sam and Dean, and the injuries they always bring along. If they stay too long this time she's probably going to end up with a spinal fracture.

A laugh, a little louder. She smiles and her lips part stickily—ugh. Normally she brings a glass with her to bed and for a second it seems unsurmountable: to get up, to leave the cocoon of sleep?

She sits up and, after a moment that drags out longer than she expects it to, manages to stand. Bathrobe, fumbled on, and she slides over the carpet, shuffly careful steps that don't even pick up her feet, trying to avoid that flinchy feel from a solid step. It hurts, especially at night.

Girls' doors are both closed, good. Trying to keep Claire on any kind of human schedule is hard enough as it is. The kitchen's bright, and she leans her shoulder against the wall, blinking.

They're doing something at the table. Chairs are back where they should be, and the dishes are clean, and Dean leans over the table with—oh, napkins, resetting the table. "Does anyone even do this?" Sam says, quiet laughter tucked into his voice.

"People definitely do this," Dean says, "at least—okay, on TV I've seen it, what do you want from me," and Sam snorts, and Jody's smiling, about to tell them they don't need to, but her eye catches on—lace.

The plaid shirt Dean was wearing has been taken off, slung over one of the chairs with a big wet splotch on it. He's left in a black t-shirt, worn jeans held up with a solid belt, and the peek of blood-red lace when his shirt lifts an inch too high, white skin showing it off.

Jody blinks, not understanding for a wobbly, too-tired second. Dean straightens up and the shirt settles back down, but Sam says, "Hang on," and—and he—

Sam slides his hand up the back of Dean's shirt, lifting it up to show white skin, and that's—there it is again. Red, red lace, riding high above the waist of his jeans. Feminine and obvious, and it must be hidden almost all the time. "Here?" Sam says, and it's a joke, is what Jody's thinking. A joke, a bet gone wrong. Dean's shoulder lifts, and he ducks his head, and Sam says, "Hey," and he leans in closer, ducking his head down too. "It's all good with me," he says, and it's so… _warm_ , warm and familiar, not like she's ever heard his voice in her life. He slides his hand back down, and his fingers dip down, _below_ , slipping under the lace hem. Dean tips in against him, his shoulder tucked into Sam's chest, and Sam's mouth brushes the top of Dean's ear and it's only then that he glances casually back toward the hall, and sees Jody.

He straightens up so fast he flinches and claps a hand to his stomach. Dean looks at him and frowns, turning too, and when he meets Jody's eyes the look on his face is pure shock, like he's been hit with a two-by-four—and that means, that means that what Jody's seeing isn't interpretable, it isn't something she's mistaking. That means—

She stands there, frozen, for a too-long second. "Jody," Sam says, voice low, and Dean immediately says, "Oh my god," barely audible, and his shirt's still hitched up over his hip where Sam was touching him and Jody can see, she can still see—and Dean sees where she's looking and yanks his shirt down, his ears going painful red, and Sam looks between Dean and her and his face goes almost blank, almost hard, and he steps in front of Dean, lifts a hand.

"I need a glass of water," Jody says, before he can open his mouth. They're silent. She moves mechanically over to the cupboard, takes a glass, fills it. Without another word she limps back out of the kitchen, down into the darker hall and to the relative sanctuary of her room, and there she slumps down onto the bed and puts the glass down hard enough that it sloshes a puddle onto her nightstand, and that means the library book is going to have a wet mark on it, but—oh, god. Oh, god, what just happened?

She puts a hand to her face and it's so hot she must be about the color of that lace, those—panties. She swallows, the word arriving in her head just like that. The universe is tilted, rearranging itself. The familiarity between them, their easy back-and-forth, the way their shoulders brush. The way they look at each other.

There's a muffled thump, from the kitchen. _Dean_ , she hears, barely loud enough to make it down the hall, and then the front door opens and slams closed. She braces her hands on the edge of the bed, takes a deep breath. What the hell? What the _fuck_?

Her mind whirs, flicking through memories. Old conversations, older days. Was there—a clue? Something she missed? She's seen these situations, before, a few times. A very few times. A father with his hand clamped too hard on a daughter's thin shoulder. A too-poor, too-isolated, too-hurt brother and sister, and the girl nearly clawed out Jody's eye when they separated the two of them. Those times, it was—obvious, and it churned the stomach. Broke the heart.

Sam tipping in, that proprietary touch at the waist, that _voice_ , that was… he reminded her of her husband, ducking his head down to whisper in her ear. That, it wasn't—it didn't make sense. Imagination fails. She puts her hands over her eyes, blocking out everything. It can't be true. It is true.

There's a tap at the half-closed door. She drops her hands. A big shadow, blocking the stream of yellow light. "Jody." Sam, then. She stands up, and the three steps across the plush new carpet feel very long. She swings open the door and there he is: huge, she realizes all over again, and for a second she shrinks back from the look on his face.

"Can we talk?" he says. He's being very quiet, and still. After a second of her just staring his shoulders slump, and curl in. "Please."

A crack in that expression and she recognizes him. She goes and sits on the side of her bed, silent, and Sam hesitates in the doorway before he comes in, swings the door nearly closed again. Very dark now, other than the slice of gold that hits the dresser, the mirror, the chair beside them that Sam perches carefully on the edge of, his hands folding between his knees, nervous.

Nervous. He looks up at her, and the gleam of his eyes in the shadow make him a stranger. In her mind she sees again that incriminating shift and tip of weight, the familiar way Sam curved in and Dean curved to meet him. Her stomach rolls and she leans over, has to get the lamp on, because imagining this in the dark is worse than having it right in front of her.

Sam doesn't flinch from the light. He rubs his hands together, a dry rasp, and Jody opens her mouth and says, "How long?"

Her voice comes out harder than she expected. She didn't even realize that's what she was wondering, but—of course, of course that's what it is. Brothers, growing up together, and god knows—if Dean was hurting Sam—or if it was the other way around—

"A few months," Sam says, though. "Well—and a few months, before, back in—uh, 2009."

He says it direct, clear, even if he's being quiet. It's so not what she was expecting that she realizes her mouth is hanging open and she closes it, and swallows.

"When you—" she starts, and shakes her head. "When you were kids."

She can't finish it. Sam's face changes, realization dawning and being replaced just as quickly with—she doesn't know, she doesn't know what that expression is. She doesn't know them as well as she thought.

"No," Sam says, firmly. "I don't—I don't know what you're thinking, but no. We were adults."

Adults. Riled-up boys she's fed like they were starving teenagers, and men she's seen do murder. She read the most wanted posting for them, once. Grave desecrations and robbery and serial killing. A picture being painted with those mugshots, brothers who roamed the country like a terrible plague, death following. The FBI's psychological profiler never even knew the half of it.

Sam's looking at her. Her mind keeps flicking away. Like a trainwreck she just wants to keep picking at details. How did it start, she wants to know, and has no idea if she could handle the answer. If Sam would even tell her.

"We're not—I'm not sorry," Sam says. His shoulders are still low but he's not shying away. His jaw squares, flexes, and he sits more upright. Facing a firing squad. "I know it's… weird."

"Weird?" Jody says, louder than she meant to. "That's what you're going with, weird?"

Visible swallow, but Sam doesn't rise to it. He takes a breath that swells his chest, lets it out slow. "I could try to explain," he says, and it's rough-edged, and there's a faint edge of wet to his eyes. Makes them gleam, in the light, and she realizes for the first time that he's feeling this, as much as she is. "I could try. Do you want me to?"

She does, she doesn't. "I didn't even know you were gay," she says, and it makes Sam huff, his head tipping back so he looks at the ceiling.

"That's—" He shakes his head. Scratches his eyebrow, runs his hands through his hair. "Dean would be making so many stupid jokes right now."

Dean. Cruel flicker in her head. His shock, at being—seen. Panic, shoving his shirt back into place so the evidence would be hidden. "Where is he?"

Sam shrugs, but his eyes flick toward the wall, like if he could just see through it he'd know exactly where Dean was. "Car's still here," he says. "So he's still here."

"The—" Jody stops, can hardly say it. Sam looks back at her, and he looks tired. Tired, and sad. "With the—the lace. Do you…"

It's so strange she can't wrap her mind around it, can't decide what to ask. Do you make him? she could say. Does he make you? It's too much, too much at once, and Sam's eyes flicker, and he says, "I'm not going to answer that," and she opens her mouth and he shakes his head, says, "Jody. I know, I know we're—this is a lot. But I can't. Dean never even wanted to tell me, I can't go sharing secrets."

"The secret's out," Jody says. She doesn't mean it to be cruel but Sam flinches, and he does look away, then, another shaky breath pushing out of him. She frowns, then, thinking. "Did Bobby know?"

It'd make sense. The way he talked about it he practically raised them, when their father was gone, and was the only refuge for years.

Sam's eyes close. "No, it wasn't—we were careful." He folds over, abruptly, in his chair, his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. "Back then, we were—fuck. We were so careful, I don't think Hell even knew."

She breathes. Hell. Right. The—lives they have. Ghosts aren't even half of it.

"I'm going to sleep," she says. Too much. It still feels impossible, if it weren't for the reality of it staring her in the face.

Sam scrubs his hands through his hair again, folds them loose. Prayer-hands. "We'll go," he says. Defeat, shouldered. His lips press together before he stands up. "Sorry, Jody."

"I didn't say you had to go. Stay, you shouldn't be sleeping in the car with that hole in your stomach." Easier to focus on that. He touches his abs, unthinking, and she shakes her head when Dean's face rises up behind her eyes again. "Take the couch, or—I don't care. I'm going to bed."

A long pause. "Okay," he says, soft, and then he's gone, his steps soundless on the carpet.

She strips off her bathrobe, climbs back under the blankets. Her knee twinges but she ignores it. Two in the morning and her eyes are wide open, staring up at the ceiling, her brain fractured and stagger-stepping from thought to thought. Speculation she can't help, assumptions she tries to put aside. Neither do anyone any good.

Sometime before dawn, the front door opens again. Going out or coming in—she doesn't know. Somehow, absurdly, after that she falls asleep, because she wakes up again with her alarm going off, and she fumbles with the bedside clock and gets it shut off and then leans there on her elbow, head hurting and eyes dry and achy, and the world comes back to her but it's not a shock, anymore, because that's how the brain works, stupid and reliable thing that it is. She went to sleep in a crazy universe and woke up in one just as crazy, but at least she knows what's what now. Zombies rising puts a lot of things into perspective, she's always thought.

Work to get to, either way. She calls Greg to let him know she's going to be in a little late and then takes a shower, turning the heat way up and steaming her head, her sinuses clearing, her neck losing at least a fraction of its tightness. Double-dose of Excedrin will get rid of most of the rest. She's started buying the mega-bottles. The Winchesters' world merging with hers really upped her consumption.

In most of her uniform, she comes out to find that of course Alex isn't up for school, and Claire's door is firmly shut too. Smell of coffee in the air, though, and she takes a deep breath in the hallway and then rounds the corner to the kitchen, and Sam's there—boots on, looking like he slept even less than she did. Good, she thinks, meanly, and then Sam looks up and catches her eye, and there's a flinch that she doesn't know how to deal with.

"Coffee?" she says, instead, and Sam says, "Dean made it," very quietly. She gets a mug down, fills it, and the silence between them is buzzing so thick and weighty that there really could be a ghost in the air. Well, there is. History, hanging there. She dumps in a glug of milk and a heaping scoop of sugar, because she deserves it after the night she had, and then she looks at Sam sideways where he's apparently barely being held up by the counter, and says, "I think I wish you would've lied."

He snorts, shakes his head. Looks away. He's so tall. It's stupid how often she thinks that when she looks at him, but he just—takes up so much space. They both do. The two of them are electric, unreal sometimes. Maybe it's the knowing they have, of things no one else knows. The experiences they've had, the places they've been, filling them up and spilling over somehow. Sometimes they're boys, ridiculous and real. Sometimes, like now, they're anything but.

Her head's a mess. She takes a sip of coffee, lets it roll down thick and too-sweet. Good under all the crap she poured in it. Dean always does make good coffee.

Sam doesn't want to look at her now, but he's looking toward the living room. She braces herself and limps on out and, yeah, her guess was right. Dean's sitting on the couch, face as set and grim as though someone's died, and he looks up at her and his jaw's clenched tight enough that he might break a tooth. Wearing his boots, and his jacket too, like he'll be out the door like a bullet leaving the chamber as soon as she says the word.

"Move over," she says, jerking her head. "I gotta sit down, this knee's giving me all kinds of grief."

He frowns, and scoots over. She settles down with a sigh, propping her foot up on the pillows. The morning's starting to get bright, through the big windows behind the dining table. Sam's still silent, probably acting like a statue over in the kitchen, and Dean's barely breathing at her side.

"I have to tell you, Dean," Jody says, mug warm on her thigh. "There's some days, you think, maybe better not to get up at all."

He makes a tiny sound, low in his throat, and looks away. "We'll go," he says, after a few seconds.

"I was thinking," she says, ignoring that. She has been, all night, and in the shower, and pouring her cup of damn good coffee, and sitting here, and looking at him. "The things you've seen." Sam comes around the corner, shoulder pressed to the wall, hands shoved in his pockets. They're about as far apart as it's possible for them to be and still be in the same room, but Dean's head lifts and his eyes find Sam, and Sam's looking right at him too. She feels for a second invisible. Amazing, how familiar that feeling is.

A door opens, and it's Claire, up early for no good reason. "Is that coffee?" comes her yawning voice, floating through the kitchen, and Dean stiffens up even further next to Jody, if that were possible.

Jody clenches, too, unconsciously, and it takes her a second to breathe again. Claire will see the tension in a second if she comes out here. "Sam's going to start on breakfast," Jody calls out, and it is kind of funny, in a long-distant way, to see how Sam's face ripples with shock. "Go ahead and show him where stuff is."

"Ugh," comes from the kitchen, and Sam frowns at her, slides his eyes to Dean, and then takes a deep breath. He goes back in and says, "C'mon, I can do scrambled or… scrambled," with an easy humor to his voice, and Claire blows a raspberry at him but the fridge opens, cupboards slam.

Dean's frozen, sitting next to her. Jody lifts her leg off the pillow with a grimace, sits up straighter. "I want you to tell me the truth about something," she says. She puts down the mug of coffee. "What happened with Sam getting shot?"

"I dug out the bullet," Dean says, low.

"Which probably caused all kinds of bleeding," Jody says. She keeps her voice low, ignores how Dean's eyes shudder closed. "What happened, that you wouldn't say last night?"

"He—" Dean swallows. "I thought he was dead. Had to leave him, in the cabin, and the cops—" He shakes his head, mouth tightening. When he speaks again it's such a quiet rasp she can barely hear it over the clatter from the kitchen. "I was gonna make a deal. I couldn't, uh." He licks his lips, presses them together. "ODed, so I could talk to Death, but she—it didn't matter. Sam came back."

He drops the overdose comment like it's nothing. What matters is the last part. She sits back on the couch, looks up at the ceiling. "You just talked to Death," she says, under her breath, and in her peripheral vision Dean's finally looking at her.

Another door opening—"Hey, you look like you climbed right out a rat's nest," Claire says, helpfully, and Alex says, "You look great yourself, bedtime Barbie." She shuffles out through the kitchen, arms crossed over her chest, looking pitiful, and a little, yes, like she got dragged through a wind tunnel. "Jody, do you think I could get a ride to school?"

"After you comb your hair, maybe," Jody says, and Alex rolls her eyes, put-upon. "Yeah, of course. But we're gonna have breakfast with the guys first, okay. Go on, get ready, there's going to be scrambled eggs."

"Maybe try using a little less hairspray!" Claire says, and then, "Jeez, what's wrong with you," and Sam says, "Nothing, just a little tired." It's mostly believable.

"He's got a good poker face," Jody says, and Dean says, "Jody."

She looks at him, and he's—miserable, through and through. His ears are red, and his cheeks, and he looks like he's expecting a blow.

Truthfully, there are a lot more things Jody could say. The shock's not there anymore, though, and even if it's somewhere she doesn't want her mind going with a ten-foot pole, even if she never wants to think about it again—the disgust wasn't there, either, not for a second. Worry, fear, pity even. He thought that Sam was dead and the next logical step was to overdose and talk to death itself, rather than wait, rather than acknowledge it, rather than heal. Everything Bobby ever told her about them, this story fits right in. So she doesn't understand it. She doesn't have to make it harder.

"We're going to have breakfast," she says. "Scrambled eggs, I hear. And toast, that's somehow already burning. Everything else can wait."

"It can, huh," Dean says, like he doesn't believe her.

"I'm feeding you my eggs," Jody says. "What do you want from me?"

Claire pops around the corner, braids and pajamas and impatience. "Okay, I think we saved the toast," she says. "You guys going to come eat? It's getting cold."

She disappears and Sam takes her place, holding full plates, eyes careful on the two of them. "You heard her," Jody says. "Help me up, come on. Breakfast time."

Dean stands up, looks at Sam, looks at her. "Might have to get you to drop Alex off," Jody says, making her voice light. "If you don't mind."

Dean swallows, and nods. "Sure thing," he says, soft and grateful, and extends his hand. She takes it and he pulls her up, careful, and she leans against him for a brief moment—warm and strong, and crazy maybe, but that's okay. She's learned how to deal with crazy before. She thinks she can probably do it again.


	2. Chapter 2

Dean doesn't talk for a hundred miles. It's just as well; Sam doesn't know what to say. The radio's on but Sam hardly hears it. Sioux Falls disappears behind them and they're going—Sam doesn't know. West. His stomach still hurts and Dean won't hear of them hunting and so they've just been wandering, and even if things aren't great, even if the Darkness is looming and Lucifer's in the wind in Castiel's body, they've been okay, because he and Dean have been okay. So long since that was true and Sam's been clinging to it, as much as Dean has. What they've got is good.

Noon, and a warmer day than the last. The sun pours bright over the boring South Dakota landscape, empty land before and behind and to either side. He keeps turning it over in his head. Stupid mistake. They're so careful, everywhere. Even where no one knows them, even when they're a thousand miles from any possibility that someone might see those two men and think, _brothers_. Sam's not ashamed, not exactly. There's been too much in his past that's worth real shame for him to hate himself for this. But still, there's no one in the world who could possibly understand, and more than that: he doesn't want anyone to. It's no one's business but theirs. And in Jody's house, of all places. 

What Dean finally says is, "Gotta get gas," and Sam blinks to find the Impala dipping off the interstate towards a little town he didn't catch the name of. Gas, motel, fast food. They ease under the awnings at the Shell station and Dean turns off the car, and just sits there for a second, staring out the windshield.

"Dean," Sam tries, but Dean shakes his head right away.

"Gas," is all he says, and he creaks out of the car, and so Sam closes his eyes but then goes out to hand over forty bucks to the clerk to put on pump #1, and buys two coffees besides, and goes and sits the coffees on the hood and watches Dean fuel up. 

"Don't," Dean says, after a minute.

"I'm not," Sam says back, and Dean glances at him under his eyelashes and looks down again, like the gas tank has to be supervised.

Jody has a particular way of looking shocked that's hard to forget. She's been through so much at this point that it's hard to find things that shock her, but damn if they didn't manage. Those big eyes, her mouth parting like she wants to speak but forgot how. Sam keeps turning it over. If he hadn't noticed—if he hadn't seen what Dean was wearing, would he have touched Dean that way? Or would he have had Dean leaning close against him and wanted to have him there, anyway—and of course, of course he would. He knows himself, if nothing else, after all these years. A stupid mistake, forgetting where he was, what could have happened. Thirty seconds' difference and they'd be sitting now in that diner in Sioux Falls Bobby used to take them to, sometimes, and looking forward to dinner again with Claire and Alex and Jody, and maybe a movie. Not family, not exactly, but friends. Good ones. He hopes they haven't lost that. He thinks they haven't. He thinks.

"Where to?" Sam says, when they're both in the car again. Dean doesn't say anything, just looks grim, and Sam sighs, though he does it quietly. Okay. He should've known better.

"Dean," he says, and Dean closes his eyes. "I'm tired. Let's get a room."

He pitches his voice to a low, even tone. It's one Dean recognizes, and he breathes for a long slow moment before he nods, and turns the key in the ignition, and they move in relative quiet off of the gas islands, onto the road, moving slow and easy in the sunlight—into a new parking lot, in the shade of a long and hopeful two-story that can't have half the rooms filled on the busiest of nights, and Sam goes in and gets a reckless king, and tells Dean to drive around to room 220, and he walks alone up the stairs and along the empty balcony, with its view of nothing but empty grassland, and meets Dean coming up the stairs at the other end with the bags, and opens the door, and shuts it behind them so they're in the solitary cool dim together.

Dean drops their two duffles on the carpet, looks at the single king bed. Sam locks the deadbolt, and when Dean turns to look at the noise he says, "Dean," in a particular pitch, and Dean's face flinches and he shakes his head, his mouth a tight miserable line.

"Hey," Sam says, reaching out a hand. "It's okay."

"By what fucking measure is this okay, Sam," Dean says, but he doesn't move away, and even if he's bitter and upset, Sam knows what to do with this. He knows.

He takes Dean's elbow, and when Dean jerks he shifts his grip to the bicep, and then the other, and he twists and Dean pulls at him but then goes—soft, so soft, and Sam drags him close and then pushes him up against the wall between the door and the window, the light drifting through the slatted blinds soft against Dean's skin. Dean leans his temple against the wall, eyes scrunched shut, and Sam presses in close, his hands heavy on Dean's arms and his hips pressed against Dean's hips and his forehead tipped against the soft scratch of Dean's hair, his smell filling Sam's head. He leans his weight in, tipping heavy against Dean, and he blows out a quick hot breath. It's meant as reassurance, comfort, for Dean. It's just as much comfort for Sam.

"It's okay," Sam says, quiet against the soft curve of Dean's ear. Tension, immediately, Dean wanting to push away. "Hey. Listen to me. It is, it's okay."

He keeps his eyes open. The light slices a vertical line along Dean's eyebrow, his cheekbone. His eyelashes, thick and dark and—and wet, a line of damp pearling them to black, and Sam lets go of one arm and touches Dean's chin, and watches his lips part, a shaky breath shuddering through them. "Hey," he says again, as soft as he can. "Come on."

This, this is something Dean does to himself. That humiliation, working through him, it's nothing Sam can touch. Sam lets his nose brush Dean's ear, takes his jacket and peels it off over Dean's shoulders, and then takes the soft purple flannel, starts to tug it down. Dean lets him, lax, and when he's down to his t-shirt and jeans and boots Sam says, very quiet, "Show me," and Dean's eyes scrunch wrinkled-tight but he reaches down, and there's the sound of dragging leather, the clink of buckle, a zip, and Sam doesn't look down to see what's being shown.

"Yeah," he says, dragging his hand down the furrow of Dean's spine, his muscles rising rigid around it. He finds the scratch of lace, that pretty dark red he picked out with a dry mouth, imagining the pattern pressing into Dean's white skin. He tucks two fingers below the waistline, just like he did the night before—or, god, this morning. Somehow it feels forever ago, and yet that moment, that shocking unbearable moment of being _seen_ , it's right there, under his skin. Awful for him—how much worse, for Dean.

"She won't care," Sam says, and Dean spasms, against him. "Listen. Not the way you think. She's not that person."

Dean licks his dry lips, turns his face against the wall. His ears are red, his neck. Sam brushes his mouth against the nape, wishes there were a leather cord there—wishes, for a second, he were brave enough: to go to his duffel, to go into the secret pocket and fish out the little box he's been keeping for half a dozen years, to lift it over Dean's head and hold the amulet in his hand and promise, swear. An oath, between them, kept forever.

He presses his hips in close, instead. Dean makes a small noise, in his chest.

The motel comes with a tiny table, two chairs, positioned under the window like they always are. Sam wishes, wishes, wishes he weren't hurt, that this stupid wound weren't pulling at his gut like a fishhook, but it's a reminder, too. He reaches out a hand and yanks a chair out, and drops down into it, and cups Dean's hip, says, "C'mere," and Dean wobbles but he turns, draws in between Sam's thighs, and Sam slides his hands up and says the words and Dean peels his shirt off over his head, bares all that pink-and-cream soft familiar expanse. Bare spot over his sternum, but he shivers when Sam kisses his ribs, and shudders outright when Sam says, again, "Show me," lips moving against Dean's skin, and Sam watches right up close when Dean unzips all the way, wrenching his jeans open to show his panties, his dick still only half-hard swelling up against the front. His soft places, his tender parts. His secrets, his self. They're Sam's.

Sam ducks down, stomach twinging warningly, and lips soft and careful at the white skin just above the lace. Dean's belly quivers, his hands settling on Sam's shoulders. "You're mine," Sam mumbles, against the waistband. He leaves a wet, smoochy kiss on the plush skin, drags his teeth against it. "I'm yours."

He looks up, and Dean's watching him with his face soft. That surprise, every time, like he can't believe it's true. Like he doesn't know that if it were Dean laying on a dusty cabin floor with his guts bleeding dark and monsters crawling through the dark all around, Sam would do just as much, would murder, would die.

He hasn't asked again, so he doesn't have to hear Dean lie. "Nothing else matters," he says instead, soft, and one of Dean's hands settles heavy on the side of his head, his fingers tangling in Sam's hair. Sam smiles, pushing everything else aside, and Dean looks at him like at a sunrise he never expected to see.

"Come to bed with me," Sam says. Everything else, they'll worry about tomorrow. For now, he wants to sleep—for a day, for a week. Dean tucked against his chest, their hearts beating together. It will be okay with Jody, or it won't, but that's not what matters. Not in the end.

Dean tucks his hair behind his ear, careful. "Yeah, Sammy," he says, quiet, and Sam stands up against him and takes his face in both hands and kisses him, tastes him worried and shamed and needing, kisses him to softness, to clutching Sam's shirt in his fists, to knowing: what matters is this, and them, and who they are to each other. Nothing else ever has.

 

**Author's Note:**

> [posted here on my tumblr if you'd like to reblog](https://zmediaoutlet.tumblr.com/post/184657430479/fic-into-the-flood-again)


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